


What Changes

by MikaKagehjra



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Gen, M/M, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7481292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikaKagehjra/pseuds/MikaKagehjra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After letting Kaneki eat him and finding out that his friend had died anyway, Hide tries to adjust to his new life alone. But three years later, a familiar face enters the bookstore where he works part-time...</p>
<p>[Can be read as platonic of as HideKane, so I tagged both]</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Changes

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a HideKane event last year and lost it, so I'm just going to post it now. There miiiight be a shippier sequel? But it's incomplete and I'm not sure if I'll finish it.

It’s three years since Kaneki died that Hide sees him again. So much has changed—Hide is mostly living off his stipend payments from the CCG, working part-time at a bookstore just to feel closer to the best friend he’d lost. He’d quit school, much to the chagrin of his parents, but he managed to convince them it was best he take a break for now. They didn’t need to know yet that he had no intention of going back. When he’d first left, his classmates had assumed it was because of his accident, a leave of absence while he recovered from his injuries, and Hide didn’t have the energy to correct them when they visited him at the hospital.

Even Touka visited, though Hide had no idea how she found out what had happened. She called him an idiot for letting Kaneki do this to him, but softened when Hide didn’t fight back. She’d tried to talk about Kaneki; she seemed to think they shared his loss. Hide thought she might have felt responsible for Hide’s exclusion from the last few months of his life, and he wouldn’t argue with her if she said that, either. But she never said it out loud, just looked at his injuries sadly. Hide wanted her to leave, but he never said that out loud, either. Their visit was more about what they didn’t say than what they did. She seemed to get the message; after she left, she never came back. Hide knew that he had very little in common with Touka, and he hoped that this would stop her thinking that he did.

It was hard to be an active member of society with one arm and a bum leg. It was hard to do anything the way he used to. He stopped bleaching his hair; he couldn’t do it himself, and going to a professional would take the fun out of it, not to mention be expensive. He burned his notes from hunting Kaneki, but kept the pictures. He sold his bike; it wasn’t as though he could ride it, and he didn’t want to anyway. He didn’t want to do anything. For months, Kaneki had consumed his entire life, and now… Kaneki was dead. And he wasn’t.

He forced himself to get the job at the bookstore even though he didn’t need it so that his mother wouldn’t worry so much about him. He refused to use his crutch to walk because he’d rather have use of his one remaining arm and limp around painfully than walk a little easier but feel that much more helpless. He learned to navigate the bookstore, the shortest routes to every shelf, and when he went home he read Takatsuki Sen and cried.

And one day, he went to the horror section at the end of his shift and came face-to-face with a ghost. He was frowning at the back cover of a book Hide had never noticed before, and that expression of concentration made his heart ache. There was no doubt about it; the man before him was Kaneki Ken, somehow alive after all this time. And his best friend glanced up as he approached and looked back to his book without any sign of recognition.

Hide’s chest felt tight. The air around him was thicker, harder to pull into his straining lungs. The world twisted, the shelves roaring up towards the ceiling, towering over Hide. His knees felt weaker than usual, and his hand trembled. His ears were ringing, and for a moment he didn’t realize that Kaneki was talking.

“Are you okay?”

Hide nodded, swallowing. His mouth was dry. Kaneki was frowning at him now, concern in his eyes, but not pushing against Hide’s obvious lie. He doesn’t know me, Hide realized. His stomach turned.

He didn’t want his new book anymore, but he didn’t want to leave while Kaneki was looking at him like that. He turned to the nearest shelf and tried to focus on the book titles. Settling on one, he held it out to Kaneki and tried to get the words out past his heart in his throat.

“You should try this one. I think you’d like it.” It had been one of Kaneki’s favorites from before. He hoped the man recognized it, despite his differences.

Kaneki paused to read the blurb on the back, then smiled. “It looks good; thank you.”

Hide suddenly felt choked up. He excused himself and fled the store as quickly as he could, which was not very quickly at all.

~~~~~

Back in the store, Haise stared down at the book in his hands, feeling like he was missing something important.


End file.
